


Even a fool knows (you’re the best thing I’ve got)

by chronosaurus (kimnamjin)



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Affection, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Apartments, Boys Kissing, Brief Mention of Han Jisung’s Anxiety, Declarations Of Love, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, Fluff and Mush, Fluff without Plot, Gratuitous use of space similes, I was so on the fence w titles that i just said: fuck it we goin on track, Love Confessions, M/M, Slice of Life, Slow Dancing, Star Gazing, There is no angst, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, cliche but at least it’s relevant uwu, im getting this out of the way bc i know it’s gonna do Terribly, it’s not integral to the plot so u can totally skip that part, jk mayhaps there is a plot? Debatable honestly, minho is whipped for jisung, minsung being in love for 5k, once again extremely brief, perhaps i projected onto jisung a lil bit (abt the anxiety part), take a shot of water everytime u see “fire escape”, u will be super ultra hydrated, very very brief however, what can i say...I’m a sucker for chill minsung being in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:06:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23549623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimnamjin/pseuds/chronosaurus
Summary: “Can I kiss you, Jisung?”Jisung looked up at him, through lashes dappled with rhinestone tears. Eyes wide, as if disbelieving his ears. As if it were all too good to be true; a mirage. An oasis in a desert.Jisung nodded.“Please?”And so with that, they leaned closer in perfect unison, and did as such.Jisung wasn't Minho’sfirstfirst kiss, but it surefeltlike it.The first time they kissed was like a homecoming. Like something biblical; a pox on the house of whatever tries to keep them apart. Minho found it hard to explain it in something as trivial aswords,but kissing Jisung felt like scooping up the universe in his hands, and watching the solar system fall between the spaces in his fingers.Or: Minho and Jisung live above each other, and share an adjoining fire escape. Sometimes they sit on it together, and look at the stars. Sometimes they talk. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes they kiss.Most times they kiss. And tonight is no different.Except, maybe it is just that—different.(In which Minho and Jisung realize they’re in love with each other, and then slow dance on a fire escape.)
Relationships: Han Jisung | Han/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 31
Kudos: 279





	Even a fool knows (you’re the best thing I’ve got)

_Thump, thump, thump._

The vibration of bass thrummed through Minho’s carpeted floors, seeping through his double-paned windows despite the fact he lives on the _seventh floor._

He felt each beat through his core, as they crept through the carpeting and up the legs of his couch and through the cushions and through _himself._

Minho perked up from where he was lounging on his sofa, as he listened intently at the rhythmic pounding of the booming music system on the street. Down, seven stories below. It's music, from a car. A _car._ As in, not a club or a party bus or a squad of teens with an industrial boom box. 

The track is blasted so loud that its melody is vaguely audible through rolled up windows and the brick foundation of the apartment building. The pound can probably be felt on the eighth floor above Minho. And the ninth floor above that. No lyrics can be heard, but Minho felt his ears ring, as if instinctually in response to the volcanic eruption of noise held between the four door below. The off kilter hum of the stereo that pummels the skyscrapers can mean nothing else. _No one_ else. It's rap, angry and virulent in its spitfire attitude.

Minho knows just from the boosted bass alone.

It's Jisung.

Only Jisung listens to music so loud that it can be heard from his _car_ all the way on the upper floors of their complex. 

Only Jisung uses _that_ decibel of music to keep himself _focused. “It helps me concentrate”_ , Minho (barely) heard Jisung say once, as they drove to a concert downtown a couple months prior. Jisung gestured at the sound system, at the little neon digits displaying the time and the minutes into the track. A quick flick of a hand, before his digits wrapped around the curve of the steering wheel again. If he hadn't, Minho never would have connected the dots. 

Minho doesn't understand, but he doesn't try to. He and Jisung are different, and it's nothing to be alarmed over. Their differences are what allowed them to bridge the metaphoric gap, to close invisible boundaries until they became what they are today. 

Only Jisung can make Minho feel the electric zing of lightning-winged butterflies fluttering about his tummy.

Only Jisung had his hand-me-down Ford’s sound system specially outfitted so it's a rowdy music festival confined on four wheels. Minho knows first hand, he's been in Jisung’s car enough times to become well acquainted with the worn out, oil-smudged knobs of the car's stereo panel. Only Jisung listens to rap like that. Angry rap. Rap about mental health and struggles and the sheer unfairness of the world. Rap about hope, and the blinding light of each new day. 

Only Jisung could make Minho jump off the sofa, and rush over his window. _Only_ Jisung.

Minho pressed his face to the panels of his latched window, and hooked his gaze down, down, down. The glass is cold against the tip of his nose, and each breath made the glass fog under his skin. He fought the urge to draw a smiley into the smog with the pad of his finger. Maybe even a heart.

There, down on the street. Parallel parking into a space across from their building’s entrance. A beat up, artfully-janky beige Ford. LED lights tacked up under the steering wheel and across the dashboard, melting from hot pink to neon green to icy blue. Even when the car went dark and the deafening rap cut to static silence, the candy colored strip of lights continued to morph from fluorescence to fluorescence.

Minho watched, heart pounding for reasons unbeknownst to him, as a figure slid out of the driver’s side. Blotted from the mile-high perch of Minho’s seventh-floor flat and the greyed fog of his breath against the glass, but still visible. Even in the dark of encroaching midnight. A mop of unruly, box-dyed blonde hair. Illuminated by the dollop of dingy light of the adjacent streetlight. Twiggy arms and twiggy legs, swallowed by an oversized denim jacket and contrasting with the second-skin tightness of his skinny jeans. 

A pair of red, chunky headphones hanging around the curve of his neck. Bright red. Synonymous red, as if the headphones are moreso a witch's familiar than a conduit for enjoying music. As if he can't be seen without them, lest some spell of protection be lifted.

Jisung. 

It's already midnight; the next day. The streets are empty, despite them living in the beating heart of the city. Cars are lined up in neat rows, locked up tight and made tiny little boxes of ink on wheels. But Minho is wide awake, despite the changing of the date and the march of the hours. The stars are hanging high and bright in the sky, but Minho is buzzing with excitement. With familiarity, at the sight of Jisung shutting the driver side door and clicking the _lock_ button on his key fob. The headlights of his Ford blinked to life twice, along with a chirping set of beeps that even Minho could hear from upstairs. 

That's his cue.

He wrenched open the rusted lock on his window, as Jisung shoved his keys back in his pocket, and began to stroll to the doors of their complex.

Minho poked his head out the window, into the night air. It's brisk, but not overtly chilly. The wind is soft and feathery, fuzzy and refreshing instead of biting and frenzied. It's perfect. 

“Jisung!” Minho called, cupping a hand over his lips. He hopes he doesn't wake up his downstairs neighbor, at this rate. 

Even from the street level, Minho saw Jisung’s shoulders jump in surprise. He doubled back, almost tripping backwards onto the pavement, before he followed the voice. His gaze traveled up, up, up, until they found the source of the yell. 

Minho, leaning out his window on the seventh floor. 

Jisung held a hand over his brows, as if blocking out the rays of the sun. It's past midnight. The moon isn't that bright, in spite of its full-faced glory. 

“Minho!” Jisung responded, with a cool wave of his other hand. 

“Wanna hang out?” 

There was no need for Minho to elaborate. What may seem open ended and ambiguous to others is nothing short of ordinary for Minho and Jisung. It's familiar. Habitual. Explanation was utterly unnecessary. 

Even though he's on the sidewalk, Minho saw Jisung smile. Saw how his lips pulled up, until his mouth is heart shaped and beaming and shedding light into the murky streets. The world is silent, save for the pair of boys and the thudding of Minho’s heart. As if they're the only two humans on earth after an apocalypse, nothing exists outside their eyes meeting through the seven floor distance separating them. 

“Hell yeah!” Jisung screamed, and his voice echoed through the eerily stagnant city streets. Bounced off bushes and trees, made cinderblock pound like the beats from his car. 

“I'm coming up! Meet you outside?” 

Minho smiled, so wide and genuinely joyful that he temporarily forgot the rapid clip of his heart. 

So familiar, their rapport. Their routine. So natural.

Minho nodded, even though he's sure Jisung couldn't see from the street. 

He didn't bother yelling, when he said,

“Meet you outside, Jisung.” 

_  
  
  
  
_

🌖

_  
  
  
_

Minho unlatched his bedroom window, and pushed the glass _all_ the way up. Until nothing is barring him from the stretch of air outside the walls of his flat.

He hooked his legs outside the paint-chipped sill, as he clambered outside the sanctuary of his apartment.

His socked feet land on a familiar grate of rusted iron work. Flimsy to the untrained observer, but surprisingly sturdy and secure under his weight. Under _their_ weight.

But Minho is alone, for now, on the ancient metal fire escape adjoining his apartment, and his upstairs neighbor. His upstairs neighbor, who happens to be one Han Jisung. A modest flight of corrugated iron stairs connect Jisung’s bedroom window with the peeling, oxidized metal of the fire escape outside Minho’s flat. 

Minho folded his legs under himself, soon sitting comfortably and cross-legged on the metal. It's cold, chilled from prolonged exposure to the incoming frost of the first weeks of winter. Autumn bid them farewell, taking hours of precious sunlight with her gentle touch. The sun sets at four in the afternoon, but Minho doesn't miss that churning star in the plane of blue.

He has a sun of his own.

Minho idly picked at the rusted metalwork of the fire escape, the cheap coating chipping off and lodging into the grooves of his finger pads. He quickly stopped his absentmindedly prodding; lest he fly too close to the rust covered sun, and punch his ticket to a tetanus shot the next morning. 

Suddenly, his attention is roused from the grit of the corroded metal beneath his hips. 

He heard movement from above. The _woosh_ of a window opening. The dull _clank_ of equally socked feet padding onto the first of many thin metal steps. 

The rhythmic _bonk, bonk, bonk_ of footsteps descending towards him, as if parroting the boom of his subwoofers. 

Soon, a figure hopped down the last steps two at a time, and landed on the fire escape with relatively dramatic flourish.

“Hey,” drawled Jisung, as he sank down to sit. Contrary to Minho’s position, Jisung stays _right_ on the edge of the fire escape. He dangles one leg out into open air, the other tucked up with his knee under his chin.

He barely saw, but Minho noticed Jisung is wearing two mismatched socks again. One cough-medicine pink with cartoon sheep and daisies. The other marigold yellow with caricatures of strawberries; _My Jam_ embroidered under the ankle stitching.

That's Jisung, in his essence. Randomness. The joy of spontaneity and doing what you want, when you want, because you _want to._ The innate beauty of being unabashedly unique and not giving two shits who cares. 

Minho's sock match. They're a twinning pair of ruddy brown anklets, patterned with tabby cats. 

It just about says it all about them. About their differences. Just from a gander at their socks alone.

“Sup,” Minho replied, and that was it. That was their greeting; sufficient. 

Despite the peaking chill of night, Jisung peeled out of his oversized denim jacket, and let it fall behind him into a lump of indigo and rivets. He kept his ruby red headphones around his neck, as if he'd suffer terrible consequences without their weight around his nape.

Minho and Jisung always hang out on their connecting fire escape. Monthly. Weekly. Daily _. Nightly._ It's a routine, like eating breakfast and brushing your teeth after dinner. 

Since they became neighbors, since Minho moved into the building a year prior and Jisung showed up at his door with a magic-wrapped platter of homemade cookies. Heaping piles of chocolate chip and oatmeal, sanding sugar and peanut butter cups all in the name of welcoming Minho to the complex. 

They shared that plate of sweets that same night, on the fire escape. They could barely sleep, from the intensity of the subsequent sugar rush, but it was worth it. 

Because now a year later, here they are. Together, under the watchful eyes of the stars and the cosmic gaze of the full moon. Together, on the fire escape that has become their joint second-home.

Of course, if it's raining or snowing or simply too freezing to subject your body to the temperature, they forgo the open-air privacy of the fire escape in favor of huddling up on Jisung’s couch. Cuddling up together, with Jisung’s smaller body pressed nice and snug against Minho’s larger, more muscular frame. 

But tonight, like most other nights in their temperate region, the weather is ideal. The city itself may be a monster, inlaid into concrete with only its skyscrapers serving as mighty spines on its back, but the weather is benevolent. The weather is kind to them, when the city is not. 

Sometimes they sit in peaceful silence, knee to knee and content with the absence of noise. Sometimes they stare up at the stars, pointing out whatever constellations are visible through the light pollution. Sometimes they listen to music through the grain of Minho's phone speaker. Sometimes they listen to different music, through the crystal clear bass of Jisung’s fancy bluetooth speaker. Sometimes they munch on junk food and gulp down soda until they can't stomach anymore sugar. Sometimes they hold up peace signs and purse their lips as Minho's phone camera clicks away. 

Sometimes they talk. Talk about life, about friends and co-workers and school. Talk about their hardships, about the thoughts that keep them up at night and eat through their minds like a termite through a block of wood. They laugh together, until they need to double up for gulps of air. Sometimes they cry together. _Always_ together. Like when Minho failed his advanced calculus midterm, and bawled with Jisung on the fire escape and into his tub of mint-choco ice cream. Jisung had no reason to cry, but he did anyways. It was Minho’s blight, but he internalized it as if it was his own. They hiccuped and wailed, verging on comical, in between spoonfuls of ice cream. Together. Maybe he didn't want Minho to feel alone. 

In fact, Minho _knows_ Jisung didn't want him to feel alone.

Everything they do is together. In a harsh, beastly city that can and _will_ chew you up and spit your marred corpse back out its maw, they are constant. The city is millions of incandescent eyes, trained on nothing but _you_ and your weaknesses. The city is claws of underground subways and teeth of stonework bridges, hanging taut like prehistoric serpents above the rivers. The city is terrifying, in nothing but it's otherworldly hugeness. If the city has eyes they are red and blue like police lights, flashing at random intervals to stun and disarm and maim. Heterochromia at its finest, and just as dizzying. 

They made a silent, psychic promise to protect each other from the strobing and equally starving eyes of the city. To make sure they never feel _alone._

Like when Jisung broke down two weeks ago, as he revealed his struggle with anxiety to Minho.

It was uncharacteristically warm that night, the air on the fire escape mild and tepid. He even wore a short sleeve shirt, despite it being the first days of winter. But Minho still remembers how goosebumps chewed up his flesh. 

_“I'm so scared, Minho.”_

Jisung sounded so, when he said it. He sounded small and broken, voice wobbly with the tears about to fall.

_“Of what?”_ Minho scooted closer, instinctually wrapping a protective arm around Jisung’s dainty shoulders. Holding him tight under the grounding weight of his palm. A wordless ward of protection against what’s haunting him.

_“Everything.”_

Minho remembers how his world stopped, at that single word. He remembers how Jisung coughed it out between a sniffle, sandwiched with a sob. How beady tears snaked from his eyes. How he seemed too disgusted to even wipe them away with the heel of his palm.

_“I'm scared of people.”_ Jisung elaborated without prompt. Minho held him closer, pressing him flush against his side. He remembers how Jisung’s heart fluttered into his own chest, with their proximity. He stayed silent, as Jisung slid his knuckles over his eyes. The peaks and valleys left damp and tacky. 

_“People are scary. The city is scary.”_ Minho was just trying to be comforting, but he didn't know how. Didn't know how to properly respond in the face of such primal, heart-wrenching vulnerability. From Jisung, who to the untrained eye, seems nothing short of unshakable. Unbreakable. _Fearless._ Defiance and boldness is his very prerogative, visible in his mismatched socks and prismatic converse and his stereo system that could shake the city into piles of dust. 

_“It's ok to be scared,”_ Minho kept on, spurred by an innate desire to make Jisung feel less alone. To keep their unspoken pact. To make him feel _okay,_ even when Minho himself is at a loss. 

_“It's ok to not be ok all the time. That doesn't take away from who you are. It doesn't change how strong and powerful and_ amazing _you are, Jisung.”_

_“You can be scared, and not be any less brave.”_

It all probably sounded cliche and corny, but Minho meant every word as if they'd been sewn beneath his skin and nestled into his veins. Tattooed across his flesh for all to see. 

Jisung leaned into Minho’s side and sniffled. His voice was audibly wet but he sounded certain and confident when he said, _“I'm not scared when I'm with you, though.”_

Minho felt his heart beat, and it was like a fireball behind his ribs. Heating his bones and turning tunnels of marrow to goop. That was the first time _it_ happened. The catalyst. The start of many, many, many.

He should've said something else, but instead he murmured;

_“Can I kiss you, Jisung?”_

They've been hanging out on the fire escape for a year, but _it_ only happened two measly weeks ago. Minho recalls purging the question from his gut like it was something physical. Something with corporeal weight. Something important, verging on mythical.

He didn't want to romanticize Jisung’s admittance. He didn't want to trivialize the strength Jisung showcased by divulging such a private thing with Minho, and Minho alone. He didn't want to dilute Jisung’s power. He shouldn't have brought intimacy into the picture, but Minho couldn't help himself. He got lost in Jisung’s warmth pressed into him. Fell down the rabbit hole that is his heart beat mingling with the pounding of his own. 

Jisung looked up at him, through lashes dappled with rhinestone tears. Eyes wide, as if disbelieving his ears. As if it were all too good to be true; a mirage. An oasis in a desert. He smiled, soft and brittle around the edges. But still strong. Still a smile all the same. Minho felt himself sway, as he became hypnotized by the asymmetrical crook of his lips. Heart shaped.

Jisung nodded. _“Please?”_

And so with that, they leaned closer in perfect unison, and did as such.

Time slowed to dribs and drabs of languid molasses, as seconds felt like hours. Time was sugary sweet and simmered to perfection as minutes bled into minutes bled into minutes. 

Jisung wasn't Minho’s _first_ first kiss, but it sure _felt_ like it. He'll never forget it, the inaugural moment their lips met. 

The first time they kissed was like a homecoming. Like something biblical; a pox on the house of whatever tries to keep them apart. Like something regal. Minho found it hard to explain it in something as trivial as _words,_ but kissing Jisung felt like scooping up the universe in his hands, and watching the solar system fall between the spaces in his fingers. 

That was two weeks ago. And they haven't looked back. 

In fact, they're only looking forward. Both figuratively, and quite literally. They're both facing forward, moonlight bathing their features. Gazing up at the stars. 

“Look,” Jisung piped up, after the amicable silence began to wither. He pointed a finger up into the sky, at a bundle of stars out to the east.

“It's Hercules. The constellation, I mean. Not the totally underrated and Oscar-worthy Disney movie.” 

Minho barked out a laugh, and tried to follow Jisung’s gesture out into the heavens. All he sees is stars. Abstract and indecipherable, the patchwork cosmos bleed together as if a spilled cup of liquid velvet. He sees stars, but he doesn't see _stars._ He doesn't see images, just little dots of brilliance. Some bright, some dimmed. Some tinged pallid blue, some vaguely pinkish in tone. Some pulsating, some static. He just sees stars, and their diminutive pinpricks of light.

Jisung always picks out constellations with the greatest of ease, but Minho never sees it. Not like Jisung does. 

But he sees stars, like the one besides him. Now dangling both spindly legs off the lip of the fire escape, neon socks cradled by nothing but air and softly kicking against the midnight breeze. The galaxy with a pair of clunky red headphones hanging limp around his neck. 

“I'll take your word for it,” Minho quipped, as he turned his gaze from the sky. He bid the stars farewell, in favor or looking at the human nebula next to him. Jisung’s expression is soft and serene, as he looked up at the cosmos with eyes wide with wonder. Reverent, as the blanket of heavenly brilliance reflected in his irises. Jisung's eyes are like the moon. His lips like the sun. His skin like the Milky Way. His body is molded from space dust and the shrapnel of planets colliding, as far as Minho’s concerned. 

He wants to lean over and kiss him. Like they always do. 

But they're not...a _thing._ Minho and Jisung, that is. At least, he doesn't _think_ they are. Sure, they cuddle and link pinkies and tuck loose strands of hair behind their reddened ears. Sure, they kiss sometimes ( _read: all the damn time)_ but it's not like they go on _dates._ Although, now that Minho thinks about it, their nightly fire escape hang outs could probably be considered dates. Maybe. Probably. 

But they're not a thing, explicitly. They're _together_ , but not in the way synonymous with bouquets of a dozen roses and heart-shaped boxes of chocolates and candlelit dinners.

Their candlelight ambience is the dingy glow of the matchstick street lights stories below. The only heart-shaped sweet in Minho’s life is Jisung’s smile. 

They don't send love letters sealed with a kiss and a wax seal. They don't send plush teddy bears to each other’s door steps, with a handwritten note shoved under the tag. Their love letters come in the form of Minho screaming down to Jisung from his seventh floor window. Their sonnets appear as Jisung greets Minho with the casual nonchalance of their familiarity, either hanging out his window or splayed across the fire escape like a house cat. 

They're not a couple, but at the same time they _are._ They're together, but at the same time they're _not._

But Minho is ok with it, honestly. He's ok with... _whatever_ he and Jisung have been doing. _Are_ doing, right now.

Because Jisung pried his eyes off the night sky, and now he's face to face with Minho. His irises are dark, in a manner totally uninfluenced by the murk of night. Dark from the inside out, not from a lack of sufficient light. 

Minho wasn't cold, but a shiver ran down his spine as he locked eyes with Jisung. The moonlight shone down on his rounded cheeks, sending stark pillars of light down the slopes of his cheekbones and the dip of his cupid’s bow. Pale cosmic glow bouncing off the flecks of gold in Jisung's hair and skin and eyes. 

Jisung is like the moon. He's like the stars. 

Minho wishes he would kiss him.

And his wish came true.

Jisung’s eyes fluttered shut, as he brought up a hand to cup Minho’s cheek. Long lashes fanning across aureate skin. Fingers splayed so they covered Minho’s jaw to the apples below his eyes. 

Minho wanted to keep his eyes open, to savor every second of what he knows is coming, but his physicality betrayed him. He closed his eyes on instinct, as he and Jisung leaned closer in tandem. 

Their lips slotted together, and it was natural. Familiar. Routine, like toeing off your sneakers when you come home or wrapping yourself in your favorite fleece robe. Kissing Jisung is like coming home. 

They're perched in midair on the papery metal of the fire escape, but Minho feels like he's falling. Hurtling down seven stories, until he lands with a love struck _splat_ on the pavement.

He felt air whip past his cheeks as he kissed Jisung, and he's falling.

He already fell. Fell over chocolate chip cookies, burnt edges clinked together in a make-shift toast. Fell over a carton of mint-chocolate ice cream, and sobs of failed theorems. Fell over one a.m. secrets revealed, fell over iron chains of trust linking their red-strings of fate together.

Together. Minho fell for Jisung, when they're together.

Which is monthly, weekly, _daily._

Minho falls for Jisung again, every day. Every night. 

He's falling for him again right now. 

They pulled away, and Minho swiped his tongue over his bottom lip unconsciously. He tasted Jisung. Tasted his spicy cinnamon gum and the artificial sweetness of the bottle of banana milk he chugged before coming down. Tasted the stardust on his tongue and the dandelion petals between his lips.

He fell again, and it was dizzying. Minho reveled in the way his vision swayed as if seasick. He basked in the roll of his tummy, as if about to take the plunge down a raveen. 

“Minho,” 

It's Jisung. The boy fashioned of stars and moon rocks and angry, furious rap bars. 

Minho hummed, and their hands found each other in the darkness. Without needing the guiding help of the ghostly moonlight, Jisung removed his palm from caressing Minho’s cheek, and laced their fingers together.

“What are we?” 

Oh. 

Minho didn't think this far ahead. He didn't _think_ about this at all, truthfully. He just accepted their gradual descent into intimacy without a second thought. What are they? It's a valid question. A good question. A terrifying question.

_We can be whatever you want us to be,_ Minho almost said, if the internal dam within his brain sprung a leak. _We can be whatever, as long as you won't leave._

Minho doesn't know what the right answer is, to make Jisung stay. 

“I don't know,” Minho answered truthfully, and felt his heart pick up speed. Now the dizziness is more akin to whiplash. Now the twist in his gut is nauseating. He's falling, and for the first time Minho is _scared._

Because he doesn't know what Jisung wants. What the correct answer is. He's falling and there's no safety net, and Minho is _afraid_ under Jisung’s dark-as-night gaze. As the time-honored saying goes; _there's a first time for everything._

Jisung’s lips quirked up at the corners. Imperceptible at first, before growing wider like a tidal wave gathering hurricane strength.

“Can we be boyfriends?” Jisung asked, with a tilt of his head. Stringy, gelled blonde locks were sent tumbling, as much as the stale pomade permitted. Minho blinked, as reality crashed over him like a felled oak. Knocked his skull case around and made his fingers twitch. Jisung stroked comforting circles into the flesh between his thumb and pointer finger, and had it not been for the gentle ministrations Minho would have sworn he had succumbed to a dream. 

The feeling of the pad of Jisung's thumb over his skin woke Minho up like a slap to the face. Like cold water dumped over his body. 

“Boyfriends?” Minho repeated, as his brain rewound and flipped upside down before stumbling back to stilted rhythm. It's all he could manage. 

Jisung laughed. Sweet and dulcet like a mouthful of candy hearts. Like a spun sugar confection all wrapped up in a pink satin bow. 

“Boyfriends.” He said, a simple confirmation. Jisung is cosmic, and Minho is starstruck.

Minho darted over to leave a wet smooch on the exposed skin of Jisung's forehead. He knew that would've been answer enough, but he likes the way the word tastes on his tongue. Like chocolate and mint and cloying artificial banana. 

“Boyfriends.” Minho said it like a promise. “That sounds perfect.” 

Jisung grinned at him, before he placed a kiss on the corner of Minho’s mouth. His skin is buzzing and tingling and Minho wants to move. Wants to put that torrent of energy in the wake of his nerves to good use. Wants to pop up and _dance_. 

So he wordlessly grabbed Jisung by the wrist, and dragged them both off the metal grating. Jisung squeaked and stumbled, as his unmatched socks are suddenly ushered back onto (relatively) solid ground. He tripped right into Minho’s waiting arms. 

Minho placed a hand on the dip of Jisung’s waist, the other still intertwined with his (new boyfriend’s?) digits. 

As if on instinct, Jisung placed a matching hand on Minho’s midriff. Gentle fingers laying soft over his skin, separated only by the thin cotton of Minho’s sweatshirt. 

There's no music, but they began to dance. There's no five piece orchestra, but they began to waltz.

They don't even know how to waltz. 

But they moved their socked feet in a perversion of practiced grace, bumbling random steps and knocking hips as they slow dance in the refreshing midnight air. 

Minho is a dancer by trade, but he doesn't know the first _thing_ about ballroom technicality. His speciality is hip hop, and the occasional modern piece. Jisung is very much _not_ a dancer by trade. At all. He can barely differentiate between contemporary and jazz. 

And yet, here they are. The only two people on earth. The only two people in the city. Slow dancing in their own special way on Minho’s fire escape. 

It's, admittedly, unsafe to mock-waltz on nothing more than the flimsy structure bolted between their apartments. They're treating archaic iron as if it's the opulent marble tiling of a fabled castle ballroom. The rusted metalwork thrummed and shifted under their untimed steps, as if threatening to give way any second. But the boys aren't afraid. Minho isn't afraid—not anymore, at least. 

There's no bandstand, but Jisung spun Minho with dramatic flourish. There's no barrel-chested operatic crooning, but Minho dipped Jisung until his mop of styled blonde hair kissed the rusted grating.

The stars twinkled above their heads, as if applauding their performance. The moon appeared to gaze solely at them, craters as a thousand eyes and attention laser focused on their spur-of-the-moment routine.

It was awkward, and clumsy, but it was perfect.

Minho twirled Jisung, until his momentum corralled him right into Minho’s arms. Right into his chest. Jisung’s back pressed right over Minho’s heart. He knows he could feel it beating. Pounding for him and him alone. 

“I think I'm in love with you, Jisung.” Minho still isn't afraid. With Jisung, he has a suspicion he never will be again. 

Jisung hummed, as he melted into Minho’s arms. Their chests are heaving from attempting to turn the modest fire escape into a ballroom, but their eyes are alight. Glowing from within with life, and love, and happiness. Their smiles are bright enough to put the stars on collective unemployment. 

“How convenient,” Mused Jisung, as he craned his neck to kiss the base of Minho’s jaw. 

The night is cool and chilly and trudging slowly into day. But the two boys are wide awake. Warm in the closeness of their bodies alone. Fuzzy from the heat of their smiles. 

Minho may be meager feet outside his apartment, but with Jisung in his arms he's _home._ In the fullest, most fundamental sense of the word. He could be stranded at sea, lost in the bowels of a jungle, but if Jisung is held in his arms and pressed heart-to-heart with Minho, he's home. Simple as that. 

Minho is home and at peace, on the fire escape with Jisung. The wobbly, rusted, riveted structure loosely adjoining their apartments, which has become their world. A new world. A new home, made exclusively for _them._ It's theirs, and no one else's. Not the moon’s or the star’s or the galaxy’s. Not the city’s. It's _theirs,_ in the sacred sort of way only a sanctuary of that caliber of emotional intimacy can be. 

Jisung giggled, in between pecking Minho’s cheeks and lips and the tip of his nose.

“I think I love you too.” 

**Author's Note:**

> This is nothing. This is a nothing fic. 
> 
> I wrote this at 1 am after seeing a pretty fire escape. Please take pity on me.


End file.
